ORACLES OF APOLLO IN FRANCE.
Towards the frontiers of Auvergne and Velay, upon the high rock of Polignac, there was formerly a temple of Apollo, famous for its oracles. The time of its foundation ascends to the first years of the Christian era, since, in the year 47, the Emperor Claudius came hither in great pomp, to acknowledge the power of the god; and he left proofs of his piety and munificence. The débris and mysterious issues that are found even now upon the rock, in the heart of its environs, reveal the secret means employed by the priests to make their divinities speak, and to impose upon the people. At the bottom of the rock was an ædicula: it was on this spot that the pilgrims took up their first station, and deposited their offerings and made their vows. A subterranean passage communicated from this ædicula to the bottom of a great excavation, pierced, in the form of a tunnel, from the base to the summit of the rock. It was by this enormous opening that the vows, the prayers and questions, pronounced in the very lowest voice by the pilgrims, reached instantly the top of the rock, and were there heard and collected by the college of priests; the answers were then prepared, while the believers, by a sinuous and long path, slowly arrived at the end of their pilgrimage. The answers being ready, the priests commissioned to transmit them repaired to profound and deep apartments, contiguous to a well, the orifice of which terminated in the temple. This well, crowned by an altar, being enclosed by a little hemispherical roof, supported in its external parts the colossal figure of Apollo; the mouth of this statue being half open, in the middle of a large and majestic beard, appeared always ready to pronounce the supreme decrees. It was also through this opening, by the means of a long speaking-trumpet, that the priests at the bottom of this den of mystery and superstition made known those famous oracles so imposing and so powerful in their effects upon the human soul as to impede for centuries the substitution of the more pure and holy precepts of the gospel.
BEST POSITION FOR SMOKING OPIUM.
Opium is not smoked in the same manner as tobacco. The pipe is a tube of nearly the length and thickness of an ordinary flute. Towards one end of it is fitted a bowl of baked clay or some other material, more or less precious, which is pierced with a hole communicating with the interior of the tube. The opium, which before smoking is in the form of a blackish viscous paste, is prepared in the following manner:—A portion, of the size of a pea, is put on a needle, and heated over a lamp until it swells and acquires the requisite consistence. It is then placed over the hole in the bowl of the pipe, in the form of a little cone that has been previously pierced with a needle so as to communicate with the interior of the tube. The opium is then brought to the flame of the lamp, and after three or four inspirations the little cone is entirely burnt, and all the smoke passes into the mouth of the smoker, who then rejects it again through his nostrils. Afterwards the same operation is repeated, so that this mode of smoking is extremely tedious. The Chinese prepare and smoke their opium lying down, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, saying that this is the most favourable position; and the smokers of distinction do not give themselves all the trouble of the operation, but have their pipes prepared for them.
EXECUTIONER'S SWORD.
The weapon engraved below forms one of the curiosities in the superb collection of ancient armour belonging to the late Sir Samuel R. Meyrick, at Goodrich Court, Herefordshire. It is the sword of an executioner, having on it the date 1674. The blade is thin, and exceeding sharp at both edges; and engraved on it is a man impaled, above which are the words, in German, of which the following is a translation:—
"Let every one that has eyes
Look here, and see that